


Somewhere

by melforbes



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Sad, i'm trying to give every possible warning that it's sad, it's really sad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-19 00:53:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9410369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melforbes/pseuds/melforbes
Summary: They travel together to a funeral. Somewhere along the lines of post-IWTB, post-breakup, revival ignored.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Not recommended for bad days. Death is a central theme.

He hates driving in the city. Then again, he hates driving, period. However, he has to pick her up, and as he parallel-parks in front of her apartment building, he doesn't even need to turn the engine off; she's already out front, that Michael Kors bag he abhors slung over her nearly-bare shoulder, her other hand holding onto her little suitcase as though it's a lifeline. The last time he saw that suitcase, he was hoisting it into the back of her car, his mind echoing  _don't help her, don't help her, don't let her think you want this_  even though he knew that sitting back and watching her leave would only confirm for her that she was correct to do so. The suitcase is hard-sided, just barely too large to be considered a carry-on, and its wheels rotate 360-degrees so that she can just drag it alongside her whenever she travels. Chewing his lip, he misses the suitcase she had during their time working x-files; it'd been big and black and almost generic save for the little red bow she left on top, a telltale sign at luggage carousels. While she always found hers immediately, he would have to turn over multiple black bags in order to find his own, but the _I told you so_  smile she held made it all worthwhile.

He steps out of the car, pops the boot so that he can hoist her suitcase on in; she opens the passenger's-side door, gingerly sets her purse on the floor of the car, sits down there wordlessly. Because her hair is in a short braid, he knows she had it cut, tries to keep the grimace to himself as he remembers how wild and long it once was, how she kept hair elastics by the bed and in the pockets of all of his pants, how he would run his fingers through its messy waves on Sunday mornings and feel their lives start at her scalp and finish at her splitting ends. Outside, the city is hazy and hot, cars honking while exhaust fumes smother him, and as he pulls out of the parking space, he finds himself already stuck in traffic. It'll be a long drive to the airport.

"The flight's been delayed," she says from the passenger's seat, her voice stark and emotionless; he barely recognizes the tone as being hers.

"I didn't know that," he says as he takes a hard left turn, his cheap car cringing at their surroundings.

"It'll be heading out at two instead."

"Oh," he says, then checks the time in the car. Ten-thirty. They're early, really early, early enough that the traffic doesn't matter.

"I'd like to stop somewhere."

Before he can protest, can insist on just lunch or something equally objective and emotionless, she pulls out her phone - a new one in a new navy-colored case, the latest model of that Apple kind he can't figure out - and brings up a G.P.S. app, types in a location he can't discern. Arlington, he figures, or maybe her mother's house, or the Atlantic Ocean, just driving directly into it in a _Thelma and Louise_  kind of way.

"Turn right," she says, so he listens.

_Scully -_

_I don't know what else to do. I don't know how to deal with this. I feel as though my brain's but shut off, or just been replaced with that of a cat or something. I feel as though all I'm supposed to do here nowadays is eat, sleep, drink - only water, I swear. Maybe a coke, but that's not the point. I feel reduced to mammalian instinct, minus the parts that make life different for each of us. Sustenance, and that's it. I don't know how to think anymore. Though I can follow a recipe, I can't follow anything else even though I'm trained to do so._

_There are five stages of grief, and I've yet to come across any discernible one of them. Maybe that's just not how I work, but I know I should've at least cried by now. I know I should've called you all drunk and blubbering and told you off using my more ugly emotions and words. I know I should've done something regrettable by now, but I haven't. Unfortunately, you're the only person who could possibly understand this, but each time I try to call you, I can't bring myself to dial because I don't know how you'll react. You like space, and I can't take yours from you right now, but I need you to know so many things._

_My therapist says that writing's productive, but it hasn't helped me yet. The 'not thinking' thing makes writing hard. I guess I just can't fathom this, for it was never my reality. I can't imagine how you must be feeling. Yes, I have regrets, but I can't blame myself for the loss. I can't blame you either, and you'll absolutely never be to blame, but I feel as though I should hate myself right now, or hate you, but I can't. I can't do much of anything._

_I keep hoping I'll just wake up from this someday and find you next to me, and nothing's changed, and you laugh because my hair's out of place, and you're so brilliant in the morning, did you know that? I wish I could share it with you. I wish I could take your picture and show it to you and just explain how vivid you can be. I wish I could point out the lines of your skin and tell you about how each one is just so breathtaking that I'm mesmerized. I wish you were two people, my partner and my best friend, because whenever you do something fantastic, I want to tell you about it because you're my favorite person there is, but you already know about it because you're you. But that's all...I won't send this letter because things like that will leak in, and you don't deserve to hear that, but regardlessly, I want to open my eyes and have all of this be something I dreamt up. Maybe I'll blame myself because of you and not because of anything big-picture. Maybe I'll blame myself because, if I hadn't done this to you, then maybe you would be in a better place now, and maybe you wouldn't be alone in mourning. I don't know._

_I should've been better for you, and I should still be better for you, but I'm not. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry._

He stands back while she centers herself with the Washington Monument in the distance; first, there's her, then the reflecting pool, then the monument sticking straight up above her. Tentatively, she slips her sandal off, dips down so that she can run her painted toes through the water there. Just as ornately as the moment began, it ends, and she puts her shoe back on, cranes her neck back to face him again.

Though the dress she's wearing is familiar, he can't remember ever seeing it on her, only recalls it hanging in their shared closet; it's white linen, the skirt to the knee, the straps thick but sleeveless. She still wears her cross, and today, she has a little pair of pearl earrings on, but otherwise, she wears no jewelry. Though the dress is hardly sheer, he can nonetheless see the outline of her tattoo beneath it. Wiping sweat from his brow, he walks closer to her, takes her glance as an invitation.

The summery crowds are out, all tourists taking pictures of the Reflecting Pool and educational camps guiding matching-shirted students in fluorescent yellow packs through the nation's capital. Modest space between them, she leads him toward the monument, her eyes up and her lips tightly closed. If they stay out too long, she'll burn, but he doesn't bring that up, slips his hands into his pockets as they walk. They've never been the kind of people who would stand at leisurely distances, always relished in little touches and a lack of personal space; now, the distance feels awkward and uneasy. Though he can't remember the last time they walked together like this, so far apart but so close together, he knows that this is the most physically close they've been in months; even on the night when she told him the news, she sat far away from him, the distance uneasy, the separation obvious. 

She had the decency and respect for him to tell him in person, but nonetheless, he wishes she hated him, or that she'd put his personal ideals ahead of her social expectations and told him over the phone instead. To a fault, they're both private in their grief, tears coming like silent tsunamis, emotions repressed until they physically cannot be put down anymore, so having her sit across from him at the farmhouse's kitchen table and tell him the news had left him craving loneliness, craving the far-apart nature of their lives. That evening, he was glad to see her off, to let her drive away with only an _I'll call with any updates_  in her wake; he thrived in letting his emotions distort him, in breaking one of the mugs she used to use, in screaming so loudly that even his miles-away neighbors could've heard him. In her presence, however, he needed to steel himself.

"I received a call from a woman in Colorado," Scully explained that night. "She was...she contacted me because she was William's adoptive mother."

"Okay," he said.

She met his eyes out of forceful habit, out of respect; her eyes swam with unreadable discomfort, but despite the news, she kept her voice neutral and informative, strong and steady.

"He was involved in a four-car collision over the weekend," she explained. "He passed away on Saturday."

She stands in front of the monument and crosses her arms over her chest. With a new pair of sunglasses pressed over her eyes, she makes her expression even more unreadable. For the moment, he's thankful that they booked separate hotel rooms in Colorado. 

_Remember when you came home with a plastic bag full of weed, and I asked you if you were crazy, and you said that if I wouldn't see a therapist, then we would self-medicate instead? I hate that you knew me well enough to do that, and I hate that you knew how to roll a joint even though I know you'd only smoked once, back in the tenth grade, before it would've posed any employment problems. It was so like you, Scully, to take marijuana like an obligation, like it's chicken pox and better to get when you're young and can still bounce back. I remember how you brought me out onto the porch because you didn't want the stench to be in the house, but after a while, you went back in for a blanket, sat us on the grass outside instead. I kept coughing it up, but you took it into your mouth like you'd done it a hundred times before._

_I don't know. I guess that was just the last time I felt really good, and that's awful because it was in a drug-induced haze, one that had been entirely your intention. But there was this sense that I was me and that you were you, and that that was what kept the world spinning. It was as though having either of us be anywhere else would've ruined the whole thing, would've put the earth off-axis. You kept holding my hand like it tethered me to you, and if you just kept hanging on, I could come back, and I felt spinning and hungry, if that makes sense, and when you offered me water from your ice-cold bottle, I'd never tasted something so silky and sweet. All of the sudden, I could see each long blade of grass as some kind of beacon, like the springtime had become overwhelming in the few minutes since you'd come home. Your work-shirt got uncomfortable, so you took it off, your bra too, then your pants, and you leaned back onto your forearms, let your neck fall back with meditative ease, and I wanted to kiss you but feared, of course, that that would put us off-axis too._

_I still don't know where you got that shit from. I probably should've asked. But anyway, staying out there with you until the sun set, that was the last time I felt good. It was all because of you, and weed, but that was related to you as well. I wanted more the next day, but you said no, as you should've. I don't know why I didn't start with a therapist after that. I think that was wrong of me. I'm sorry._

_But the way we used to be was good, wasn't it? You were happy, weren't you? I don't want to admit it, but I fear daily that I've robbed you of any possible happiness. I've taken so much from you, Scully, and you never deserved that. I don't want to talk this through with you, for I fear that your logical mind will realize how toxic I am, and then, you'll moved to Toronto or Timbuktu or somewhere else where I can't find you, and I'll start to forget the way you smell, and things will be awful. I'll get through it, we both will, but I don't want it at all. I just want to be better, and to be better for you, but if I were to tell you that, you'd scoff and insist that I be better for myself, but I just want to be better for you anyway. But I can't, and that's why you left. I can't blame myself for William, but I can blame myself for that._

She orders gazpacho, he a club sandwich; they sit outside at a cafe, the sidewalk bustling alongside them. At a nearby table, a young mother looks at Scully and compliments her dress, so Scully smiles and says her baby is adorable. Looking on, Mulder wonders if the rest of the world can even discern that life hurts, and that people are cruel, and that a baby's laugh right now is fleeting and temporary; goodness dies, the only fact he's sure of anymore.

A four-car collision. Apparently, William wasn't at fault, and he was the only one to die at the scene though two other drivers were pronounced days later at a hospital. William's adoptive mother invited Scully - and, in turn, Mulder - to the funeral as a courtesy, because she wanted to. Of course, it had been a confidential adoption, but according to her, that confidentiality faded in death. Though he didn't understand the circumstances, he dared not ask either. The last thing he wanted was elaboration in regard to his son's death.

She dips French bread into her soup, her eyes down, her hands delicate as she chews; he isn't hungry, but he takes a few little bites simply to prove to her that he can. However, she keeps everything - her hands, her thoughts, her gaze - to herself, so he puts the sandwich down, stops bothering. If he doesn't need to prove himself, then he won't waste his energy on doing so.

Looking down at his watch, he sees that it's nearly noon; they should've started to head for the airport by now, but he has a feeling that if they miss their plane, neither of them will be upset. In all honesty, he doesn't want to attend the funeral of a son he held once while the boy's mother looked on in awe; he doesn't want that memory to end with a teenage casket and calla lilies, wants it to keep moving in his memory like those newspapers in _Harry Potter_  did. He wants to remember his one night with his son as a repeating day, like that one Monday he experienced over and over again; after he went to bed with Scully, the day would repeat, and she would let him hold their son for the first time all over again. Though he's never been one to cherish first times, he cherishes that one.

And that night, that was another night when he felt genuinely, purely happy. When his therapist asked about his better memories, he described holding William while Scully took a well-deserved shower and fearing that, with just one little movement, he could hurt the baby; he described how beaming and beautiful she'd been, how she took to motherhood with terrifying ease, how she tickled their son as she breastfed him, how she couldn't take her eyes off of their little boy no matter how hard she tried to. He described kissing her and holding her and telling her how thankful he was for this, for her, for everything, absolutely everything. And then, they go to sleep, and he repeats the day all over again, and their son is alive and tiny and so naive to the cruelties of this world.

He died at sixteen years old. When Mulder was sixteen, he lost his virginity in his car, his car keys at a bowling alley, and his faith in others during fifth period English. Though his memories with his son were pure and warm, life would never be, today being an awful reminder of that.

And this is what his therapist told him about, having the depression talk for so long that he forgets what's actually going on in front of him. Mindfulness, she preaches, giving him worksheets and exercises that help for a moment but fade away when he turns on the news or simply thinks. Luckily, he can't think much anymore, but his mind still weaves stories about the more unsettling parts of his life, so he follows his therapist's instructions, finds something beautiful to fixate on instead.

He can't count the number of times he's kissed that splotch of freckles on her shoulder. As she spoons some cold soup, he watches the intricate turn of her wrists, notices strangely that she isn't wearing a watch though she normally kept a sporty digital one on her wrist. Actually, she bought a Fitbit right after they separated; he could remember it from when she visited him once, indifferently, almost like a doctor would for a house call. Where's that today? Don't those work best when you use them every day?

She crosses her legs beneath the glass table; though he knows she hates the grime of the city, she's toed off her shoes anyway, and as a drop of soup falls onto the pearly napkin on her lap, he wonders why she would order a tomato dish while wearing white linen. Oh, but he can smell the oregano, watches the fresh sprigs of mint and rosemary sink into the diminishing bowl, and as he watches her spoon go from the bowl to her mouth, he wonders how it would taste to kiss her right now.

Back when they worked at the Bureau, he would kiss her secretly while they took lunch together, her mouth tasting like honey and tangy yogurt. Once, he kissed her on the run after she'd had a Vanilla Coke she'd been craving for hundreds of miles, and he can still remember the sweet, spiced sensation of it. Pizza kisses, fried rice kisses, escargot and oysters and strawberries with whipped cream, he can remember them all with terrifying clarity.

In an instant, she stills while the baby at the other table shrieks and begins to cry; her spoon ceases to move, she blots her reddened lips on her napkin, and quickly, she motions toward their waiter in order to ask for the check.

_I keep thinking about William and about how no one's really taught me how to mourn him. When it comes to mourning our parents or our friends, we learn how to do that through watching others or through TV or something. They don't, however, teach you how to mourn a son you held once._

_And that makes it sound as though I'm not upset. I'm upset. I'm so upset that I can feel myself shutting down. It's like my lungs, my liver, my stomach all know that they should give up; I feel as though I don't work anymore, as though I'm supposed to reduce myself right now, and I want to do just that. I feel as though a part of me that was already missing has had its absent portion ripped further apart. I feel as though what was once missing has somehow become even more missing. I regret so many things, Scully, but I know that I had no control over those things._

_All I know clearly is that, in the brief time I was with him, I loved him. I loved him so much that I couldn't stop saying it in my head. I know you know all those statistics about talking to infants and whatnot, but I had this feeling while holding him that if I thought hard enough, then he would hear my thoughts, all of which were centered on him. I don't think I could've even spent a moment around him and let my thoughts go elsewhere._

_I still can't fathom that he was ours. I had so much trouble believing that life was real after I had been returned to you. It all seemed like a dream, and I couldn't understand it, feared that, if I ever did, he would be taken from you, from us, all too soon. I didn't want to ask how it happened, but somehow, I knew he was mine. It was instinctive, almost animalistic; I could feel it in my bones, the sureness. No matter what, I knew he was ours._

_I don't know how to mourn what was both mine and never mine. I feel as though I'm trying to grieve for someone else's child even though I still feel such a strong connection to him. I feel as though he's not mine to mourn even though I've wondered about him every day since he was born, since even before he was born. If you were to ever read this, you'd scoff and say that I should've told you, that we should've talked about it in the years since, but I couldn't talk about it, Scully, not without feeling so many things I never want to feel. I feared too what saying something would do to you. Though I love you for it, you're determined, stubborn, so caring that it makes me want to cry right now thinking about it. If I said I wished we could've raised our son, then I would fear that you would find him again, negotiate some way to bring him back into our lives, go to the ends of the earth for him like any mother would. The problem I find with him is that we can't be emotional about him, not without causing him harm; as a result, I can't mourn him, can't let myself feel even though I know there's so much to feel._

_I'm glad that I can be nonsensical to you without actually talking to you. I like not having to think these words through. However, I miss your commentary, your coaxing, the way you filled in my more confusing sentences. Though I've wondered about it, I know now that you wouldn't make any of this more sensical for me. I know you've thought the same way and questioned the same things._

_It is unfathomably tempting to call you right now, as always but right now especially. I know you're asleep in some far off bed all alone. At least, I hope you're all alone. Actually, no. I don't._

At the baggage claim, she hoists up her little suitcase while he scours, as always, for his generic black bag. However, she doesn't smile at him like she used to, doesn't watch in amusement as he nearly steals some elderly woman's bag, mutters an awkward _sorry_ , then finally finds his bag. While he turns back to her, he watches as she begins her walk to the rental car booth, her back to him the whole time.

On the plane, she kept quiet, stayed in her own seat the whole time, put in Bluetooth headphones that must be yet another purchase he wasn't around for. Though they still have their money in joint accounts, he mostly takes from what remains of his trust nowadays, leaves her paychecks for her and her alone; from the Fitbit to the Michael Kors purse that he hopes to someday burn to earbuds that don't need to be plugged in, he figures she likes having money again, a luxurious amount for one person. Uncomfortably, he wonders what her apartment looks like, if she has framed art on the walls and blown-glass vases on the tables. Though she was never impractical, she seems indulgent now, and rightly so.

She pays for the car, rents them a Nissan that isn't the smallest, cheapest one available though it's still simple enough to suit their needs. While she takes the keys, he eyes the list of cars available, notices the convertibles on there and smiles to himself. It's a hot day here in Colorado, and he wishes they could rent something fast and red, that the highway winds would whip her hair out of that braid, but he can picture the scene tomorrow, the two of them arriving as some mysterious and absent beings, two crows in a top-down Mustang driving up to a grave. As she leads them over to the car, he sobers; for now, they have no room for magic.

She pops the trunk and puts both of their suitcases inside, the motions terrifyingly practiced from their abused rental Ford Tauruses of yore. Back then, she would load their cars, and he would drive, her navigational skills lost because he simply wouldn't listen, but now, she takes the driver's seat, her phone's G.P.S. queued up wth their final destination: Avon, Colorado, population 6,410. Though Scully had researched William once, that research had been false, leading her to belief that William was in Wyoming, not Colorado; however, he dares not ask about the location, instead sits tight in the passenger's seat while she turns the key in the ignition, while she lowers the front and back windows. Apparently, today is not a day for air conditioning.

Denver to Avon is a straight-shot on the highway, two hours by route and around two and a half with traffic; all they need to do is travel along I-70 through a national forest, and then, they'll reach what was William's home. According to Scully, his parents' names are Saul and Misty, but she left out a surname. Saul and Misty had invited them to their house for the evening before the funeral, wanted to meet more privately before the service; though Mulder had never spoken to these people, Scully had seemed to think they were genial, genuine, and he knows that people must be strong and emotionally open in order to invite their adoptive son's unknown birth parents to his funeral. For now, he should only expect good things of them.

As they leave the city, as they head toward quite literally greener pastures, he grimaces at the thought of meeting these people. What will they all say to each other? After all, there isn't much to say; Misty and Saul were William's adoptive parents, Mulder and Scully were his birth parents, and they're all uniting because a little boy is dead. Inevitably, someone will ask the elephant-in-the-room question: why did he and Scully give William up? Though he knows they owe William's parents - he shudders at the label - the truth, he also knows that the truth will do more harm than good, and though he wants to ask Scully how they will prepare for the interaction, he can't bear to break the silence between them by using heavy words. Instead, he turns on the radio, scans until he finds a cover of "Take Me Home, Country Roads." Sitting back in his seat, he feels the breezes pick up around him while she accelerates well past seventy. Today, he won't ridicule her for speeding.

However, he likes this highway for its ambience, an allure that D.C. and Virginia could only dream of having; all around them now are pine trees spread over rocky mountains beyond rocky mountains. With runaway truck lanes next to cliffs he would love to climb, he wonders what kind of adventures he could have in a place like this one. Though he hasn't gone for one in a while, he loves to hike, and Colorado, of course, is a hiker's playground; he wonders if William used to climb these mountains, if his family spent weekends in Aspen going up and down the slopes until they collapsed with exhaustion, their muscles aching with wholehearted thankfulness for the place around them. Maybe he should've moved somewhere like here, should've made like Scully and rented an apartment far enough away to drown out their old life together. _But you love the farmhouse,_  he reminds himself, and he does; however, he hates the ghost of her that flows throughout the place, the cobwebs she left behind. A fresh start is tempting though he would leave behind a place he greatly cherishes.

She passes an ancient Subaru adorned with so many bicycles that the sight of them makes him laugh to himself. Of course, people here are athletic, outdoorsy, and apparently, those kinds of people have the lowest rates of depression according to...science. Or, rather, according to his therapist. While David Bowie's "Heroes" comes on the radio, a tree-topped mountain comes into view, so he stares out beyond the dashboard, a heady _wow_  on his lips; he can't remember the last time he saw a place so lush, so green, so brimming with life that he can feel its sensation flowing through his veins, the wonder of it leaving him in awe.

"It's beautiful," she says offhandedly, but he can hear the emotion in her voice, the sense that she feels the same as he does.

Glancing over at her, he gives a half-smile, a friendly gesture, and momentarily, she looks to him, her eyes full and her lips parted, and for the first time all day, he realizes that she has gold makeup on her cheeks.

Softly, she smiles back.

_I have trouble finding words now. Or, rather, I always have, but now, they feel especially hard to find. It used to be that we communicated in a way that transcended all others; it used to be that I could touch you and have you know my thoughts, but now, it feels as though I'll need multiple degrees in linguistics, along with a few extra languages on my tongue, in order to speak to you. It's no one's fault, but I can't help wondering if we should've talked more over the years. What if I'd asked you about your day more? What if I'd made a greater effort to express my feelings? What if I'd been sure we never went to bed angry?_

_But those are all proverbial maybes. Though I find it impossible not to, I must not dwell on the past. You aren't here anymore, and though I had plenty to do with your reason for leaving, their are thousands, maybe millions, of reasons for why we are here now, probably 10% of which we had control over. Yes, I am at fault, but so are you, and everyone else is too. Though I'll remain liable, I'm not the only one who's to blame._

_I don't know how to mend our communication when we aren't communicating at all. I don't know where to begin, Scully. Can I call you? Or, rather,_ may _I call you? Would an email be preferable? What if we had lunch together sometime? I miss cooking for you. Making meals for one is boring, and I always end up with leftovers that never are eaten. What do you pack for work-lunches nowadays? If there's bee pollen in it, then I'm going to scream._

_All I know is that I can't express things through words, or touch, or anything anymore, but I need us to be closer. Not physically, not intimately, just in communication. I don't want to fear calling you. I don't want to fear hearing your voice. Though we're separate, can't we keep in contact?_

_Before anything else, you were my best friend, the only person who could make me better, the one who cared enough to follow me on whatever half-assed mission I'd begun. Can't we be friends again? I miss talking to you, like that time at two am when you went to alarming lengths just to prove to me that a supposed Bigfoot sighting in West Virginia had to do with local folklore that dated back hundred years and that I, like everyone else, was falling into an elaborately-lain trap by believing in such fabrications. I miss that kind of thing, offering comfort and being comforted. Can't we at least have that back?_

Their house is on the outside of town, in almost a suburb of a suburb, and the homes here are few and far between; they have no trouble finding number 16 in the lineup, for it's nearly a mile from 17 or 15. Here, everything is lush and warm, the mountains in the distance making him feel as though he's on another more contained planet. She parks, turns off the engine, and as he takes a deep breath, he watches the front door of the place open.

With an American flag hanging out front, and with two little Priuses parked in the garage ahead of their car, this home, painted a dark green with blue shutters that would look conspicuous almost anywhere else in the country, feels so very Colorado that he wonders if the greenery here could've sprouted and bloomed the house itself, furniture and all. As a woman - Misty, he assumes - approaches their car, Scully climbs out slowly; a less-familiar man wouldn't notice that Scully's hands are shaking.

"Oh, it's so good to see you," Misty says, her short dyed-blonde hair shifting while she walks over to Scully.

In comparison to Scully, Missy's tall, probably five-seven or eight; her brown eyes are warm but hardy, and from the muscles on her uncovered arms, Mulder can tell that she's athletic. From behind her, a shorter, stout man with a greying mustache appears, so Mulder assumes that's Saul.

"I'm so sorry we're meeting like this," Misty says, and somehow, she remains neutral and level at the sight of them; she doesn't blubber, doesn't shed a tear, keeps herself stoic but simultaneously warm.

She takes Scully's hands - wrists, rather - and lifts them up, holds them between their two bodies while Scully looks on with concern. Awkwardly, Saul joins behind his wife, gives Mulder a solemn and silently-distraught nod as he stares on at the scene.

Then, Misty lifts her hand, combs an errant strand of Scully's hair behind her ear, keeps her hand there in a gesture Mulder used to relish in; uncomfortably, Scully swallows beneath Misty's seeking gaze, her shoulder hunched, her breaths short and shallow.

As she exhales, Misty tells Scully, "He had your eyes."


End file.
